Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Diller’s passion for painting is no laughing matter

What: An exhibit and reception of Phyllis Diller's artwork.

When: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today.

Where: The Stirling Club, 2827 Paradise Road.

Admission: Free (RSVP is required for admittance).

Information: 732-9700.

While knocking out audiences with her tenaciously polished, rapid-fire jokes, Phyllis Diller knew there was something else she would someday tend to: her artwork.

It had already been a part of her. She dabbled here and there. But as with everything else in her life, Diller waited for the right time to let it explode.

"I never push anything," said Diller via telephone from Los Angeles, where she was preparing for an appearance in CBS' "The Bold and the Beautiful."

"I just wait and it happens."

One could hardly argue with the 85-year-old legendary comic, who will attend a reception and exhibit of her work tonight at the Stirling Club.

Her stage career happened at age 37 when her husband urged her to bring her jokes on domestic life to the Purple Onion in San Francisco, a move that launched a 47-year career and landed the mother of five a cozy seat in pop culture history.

Her music career happened when someone from the Pittsburgh Symphony asked Diller if she would perform with the symphony, but then fell silent when Diller suggested she play Bach or Beethoven. The caller had no idea Diller had studied the piano intensely for 20 years.

That concert piano performance, and nearly 100 others that followed, was just another feather added to the plumage on Diller's renaissance cap. Her artwork was not far behind; as comedy routines shuttled her around the country, Diller told herself that when she becomes too old to travel, she'll spend more time working on her art.

In 1986, 16 years before she performed her final stand-up show, the outrageously funny performer began to paint. From the studio in her Brentwood, Calif., home, paintings as lively and colorful as Diller emerged.

"My house is literally a gallery," Diller said.

The artwork, she said, "comes right out of my heart, my head, my soul, my guts."

"So much of the really fine things I've done in my life were unrecorded and now they're gone because they were live. This, you can touch, feel and live with."

Her paintings proved popular among collectors and fans. Her first effort, which portrayed a woman's face, sold for $15,000. Exhibits and sales continued.

Some of the work for sale tonight is recent.

"Some of it is very old," Diller said. "Some of it I took down off my very own wall."

Just don't expect to see an image of her fictional husband, "Fang," or any other bits from her stand-up routine. As with her music and four best-selling novels, Diller said her material never crosses mediums -- though she occasionally incorporates humor into her artwork.

"Loquacious Woman with Hands on Hips Making a Flowery Speech" is a bright painting of red flowers in a footed vase that in an imaginative way resembles a woman.

"That's comedy," Diller said, referring to the amusing piece. "People like that one a lot."

The women's faces she paints are commonly misinterpreted as self-portraits.

"Everybody thinks all of them are self-portraits," Diller said. "In a way, they are because I've been painting this face for a long time."

With no formal training, the big fan of Chagall, Matisse, Monet, Manet and Van Gogh (names she rattles off merrily) paints pure and unrefined renditions of nature, furniture, women and flowers.

"I love seascapes, trees, flowers, animals, faces, snow scapes," Diller said. "The stuff sells just like wild."

The fact that Diller finds art "more fun than writing" explains why her autobiography occasionally sits on the back burner. But even painting doesn't receive Diller's full attention.

"I'm so busy I haven't been in the studio in so long," she said. "Yesterday I made a pilot. Today I'm doing 'The Bold and the Beautiful.' "

Regarding comedy, Diller said, "I miss it, but there's no way I can do it. It's very grueling. Painting is sedentary. I had gobs of wonderful energy. But I don't have that anymore."

Fortunately for Diller fans, much of that energy was funneled into creative expression.

"I'm not afraid to challenge myself, test myself, and do the best," Diller said, explaining her success. "I will try. I will do it."

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